A Maltese tuna rancher can continue legal action
against marine conservation group Sea Shepherd in the UK, a high court has
ruled. Sea Shepherd UK was deemed jointly responsible.

Fish and Fish won
an appeal after a UK court last year threw out a lawsuit against Sea Shepherd in
which the Maltese company sought damages for an incident that happened in
2010.

Fish &
Fish claim that the vessel had rammed the cage of their captured Bluefin tuna,
causing damage to its property and endangering the lives of its employees, a
claim Sea Shepherd has consistently denied, arguing that it was in fact a
Maltese tug that had rammed Steve Irwin and caused the collision.

The tuna ranching firm estimated the value of the
freed tuna at just over €1 million: a rough indication of the sort of prices the
bluefin tuna, an endangered species, now fetches on the Japanese market, to
which they would otherwise have been exported.